Purnell was speaking as he set out plans to create a government think tank to help influence the evolution of public service broadcasting in the digital age.
He said he wanted future government regulation to be flexible and rather than generate minute guidelines it should articulate three goals.
These are: ensuring an open, competitive market in broadcasting; universal access to high quality programming; and enabling parents to act as regulators of their children's viewing on the internet as well as TV.
He outlined his plans to the public service broadcasting fraternity at the Royal Television Society Cambridge Convention last night.
The think tank will consist of experts from inside and outside government and will be created by Purnell's department in partnership with John Hutton, the secretary of state for business, enterprise and regulatory reform.
One of the experts is Tanya Byron, the psychologist and expert on the BBC reality TV-style parenting advice programme 'House of Tiny Tearaways'. Her role will be to look at ways of strengthening measures to protect children and help parents to filter dangerous content.
The think tank will start by organising public debates on the objectives laid out by Purnell. It will then move on to look at the future of public service broadcasting later in 2008.
The speech suggested Purnell may not give ground to the broadcasters' campaign to be allocated more spectrum to launch HD channels on Freeview after the analogue spectrum is switched off by 2012.
Media regulator Ofcom is currently examining the best process for allocating the spectrum freed up by digital switchover, with parties from outside the TV industry such as mobile networks keen to compete for the resource.
He said: "A sure way to freeze innovation would be to reserve new spectrum for existing users and incumbents."
However, he also stressed he wanted the whole country to enjoy free access to quality content and the government would intervene to stop pay-TV becoming the norm.
"A vicious circle could emerge in which the wealthy pay to watch on demand, via technology which is not affordable to the rest. Advertising revenues could gravitate to this more affluent market, leaving a significant part of the population not only without access to these new types of content, but also finding the traditional broadcast channels dwindling.
"A more fragmented audience would make some types of national conversation more difficult to conduct."
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